(CBS News) President Obama still has confidence in Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan, in spite of the alleged prostitution scandal involving 11 Secret Service agents over the weekend, the White House said on Tuesday.

Sullivan "acted quickly and is overseeing an investigation as we speak into the matter," White House Spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.

Mr. Obama is receiving updates about the incident from his staff, but he is not getting updates on the process of the investigation itself or any incremental pieces of information gleaned from the investigation, Carney said.

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President Obama announced Friday that it is moving forward with additional sanctions on Iranian oil exports in an effort to "significantly reduce" the amount of Iranian oil in the global market. This is the administration's latest attempt to pressure the country to abandon alleged attempts to develop a nuclear bomb, which the Iranian government disputes.

The sanctions, meant to further isolate Iran's central bank, pressure two dozen countries who import Iranian crude to stop dealing with Iran's central bank or risk being cut off from the U.S. economy.

The administration says the president's decision, which is mandated by Congress in last year's defense bill, will not disrupt global oil supply and demand. However, the president said he considered a number of factors - including different countries' varying oil production levels, the amount of spare crude on the market, and a country's ability to tap into oil reserves - and determined that the reduction of Iranian oil will not disrupt oil markets. He also said the administration will continue to conduct periodic reviews to ensure that the market continues to be able to withstand the reduction of Iranian oil intake.Continue »

CBS Radio News White House correspondent Peter Maer is in Seoul, South Korea, covering President Obama's participation in the international nuclear security summit.

(CBS News) SEOUL - Setting the tone for a nuclear security summit, President Obama reiterated Monday his call for a world without nuclear weapons.

Mr. Obama told a university audience in South Korea that the U.S. possesses more nuclear arms than it needs, and can reduce that arsenal without damaging America's security.

The remark will keep the president at odds with Republicans who believe any major cuts in the number of nuclear warheads would weaken the efficacy of the U.S. nuclear deterrent.

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Before his death, Osama bin Laden wanted to kill President Obama in part because he thought Vice President Joe Biden was "unprepared" to serve as president, according to newly declassified documents first reviewed by the Washington Post.

The al Qaeda leader explained the rationale for targeting aircraft carrying Mr. Obama and General David Petraeus in documents taken from bin Laden's Pakistani compound the night he was killed by U.S. forces in May, 2011. The Washington Post on Friday reported on details from the documents, which will soon be made public.

"The reason for concentrating on them," bin Laden explained in one document, "is that Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make [Vice President] Biden take over the presidency... Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the U.S. into a crisis. As for Petraeus, he is the man of the hour ... and killing him would alter the war's path" in Afghanistan."

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(CBS News) ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT -- Flying across the Atlantic Ocean Monday evening, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta slowly walked into the press compartment of his reconfigured 747 - known as the "doomsday plane" - looking as though he were shouldering the weight of the world.

"War is hell," he grimly intoned. He was flying to meetings in Kyrgyzstan, but his thoughts were elsewhere, absorbed by the latest horror in Afghanistan - the shooting deaths of 16 innocent Afghan civilians, mostly children, allegedly by a rogue U.S. soldier.

Panetta said he was "deeply shocked and saddened" by the incident - the same words other officials have used. But coming from Panetta, a man who's known for wearing his emotions on the surface, they didn't sound like talking points -- they sounded like the heartfelt words of a man who takes this kind of unspeakable tragedy personally.

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HAVANA -- Sen. Patrick Leahy met with Cuban President Raul Castro Thursday, but the Vermont Democrat was unable to convince the Cuban leader to release jailed U.S. contractor Alan Gross currently serving a 15 year sentence in Havana for smuggling in illegal communications equipment and attempting to set up an Internet network that could escape government detection.

"I told him I had a plane and could take Gross out with me," Leahy told CBS News by phone after what he said was a "very active give and take" with Castro.

Leahy said he was told something to the effect of "nice try" for his effort to get Gross released.

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UPDATED 7:03 p.m ET

A handful of lawmakers, including House Speaker John Boehner, have received threatening letters in the last few days with an unidentified white powdery substance and more may be on the way, law enforcement officials told CBS News Wednesday.

In addition Boehner, at least one lawmaker from Wisconsin and a senator from Indiana have received the letters at their district offices, with more expected to receive additional letters, the officials said.

"Those letters (already received) were tested and the substance found to be harmless," said Terrance Gainer, Senate Sergeant at Arms.

In a letter to the Senate community, Gainer, the chamber's chief law enforcement official, said the author of the letters suggested some of these letters yet to arrive at Senate offices "may contain an actual harmful material."

"Although all letters received thus far have proved harmless, it is essential that we treat every piece of suspicious mail as if it may, in fact, be harmful," Gainer wrote in his memo to the Senate community.

The letters make vague complaints about too much money in politics and had a Portland, Oregon return address from an organization listed as "The MIB, LLC," a law enforcement official told CBS News.

In addition to the letters to the lawmakers, officials said television comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert received letters mentioning the letters to senators.

The author told the comedians he would send letters to all 100 senators and ten percent of them would contain "lethal pathogens," an official told CBS News.

The author wanted an end to corporate money and lobbying, an end to "corporate personhood," and called for a new constitutional convention to rewrite the constitution.

The author also told the comedians he would tell the senators they are "working for the wrong side" and there is a ten percent chance they have been exposed to a lethal pathogen. The author also said he "randomized" which letters would contain the pathogen and even he did not know who would get which letter.

The letters come more than a decade after five people, including two Washington postal workers, were killed when anthrax was mailed to the Washington offices of a pair of Democratic senators and a number of media personalities. The mail system to the U.S. Capitol was completely overhauled in the wake of those attacks and letters are now sent through and off-site processing facility before arriving at lawmakers' offices.

Additional reporting by Bob Orr, Nancy Cordes, Rob Hendin and Jenna Gibson.

UPDATED 1:51 p.m. ET

U.S. officials on Friday arrested a Moroccan man they say was planning a suicide mission at the U.S. Capitol, a law enforcement official told CBS News.

The man was never a real threat and part of an apparent sting, the official told CBS News.

The suspect is a 29-year-old, who is in the United States illegally and living in Alexandria, Virginia, officials said.

The man had been seeking assistance in executing a terrorist attack against the United States, and officials had investigating him for months. FBI agents arrested him in his garage in Alexandria after providing him with what he believed was a suicide vest.

Click here for updates on this breaking news story

Additional reporting by Andres Triay and John Miller.

To celebrate the end of the U.S. war in Iraq and honor the American men and women who served in it, President and Mrs. Obama will host a White House dinner on Leap Day - February 29th.

The dinner is "an expression of the nation's gratitude for the achievements and enormous sacrifices of the brave Americans who served in the Iraq War and of the families who supported them," said a White House statement.

Announcing the event at today's White House briefing, spokesman Jay Carney said the White House is working with military and civilian leaders on the dinner.

He said guests will include men and women in uniform from all ranks, services, states and backgrounds.

Obviously, the White House could not accommodate the 1.5 million American military personnel who served in Iraq over nearly nine years, but Carney said those invited will represent all of those who served.

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Updated at 1 p.m. ET

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky on Monday found himself in a showdown with the Transportation Security Administration in Nashville, Tennessee after refusing to undergo a full-body pat down. Paul was later re-screened and booked on a subsequent flight.

The senator went through the scanner at the airport but was told there was some sort of "anomaly" with the scan and would have to get a full-body pat down, Paul's chief of staff Doug Stafford told CBS News. Paul did not consent to this and offered another scan, but the TSA insisted on the pat down.

According to the Associated Press, Paul said he was "detained" in a small cubicle in the airport, which is about an hour from his Bowling Green, Kentucky home, and missed his flight to Washington for a Senate session. Continue »